Lot n° 41
Estimation :
30000 - 50000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 180 320EUR
Christ taken down from the cross by the angels... - Lot 41 - Coutau-Bégarie
Christ taken down from the cross by the angels in polychrome and gilded wood. The dead Christ is represented here with his head tilted on his right shoulder, girded with a braided crown of thorns, his arms at his sides, his hands open, his legs parallel, a short perizonium tied in front with a flap inside the crotch. Christophorean angels hold him by sheets in the manner of a humeral veil, thus avoiding touching the bruised pulpit which shows all the wounds of the torture. The tunic of the angels forms deep folds, whose very studied graphics support the feeling of descending movement.
Southern Netherlands or Eastern France, second half of the 15th century
H. 52.5 cm
(small accidents and missing pieces)
Provenance : Former Jonas collection
Former Louis-Pierre Bresset collection, Château de la Rochelambert, Haute-Loire
This theme, developed later during the Counter-Reformation, is very rare in sculpture, especially at the end of the 15th century. Examples can be used for comparison. The first is the Man of Sorrows sculpted in alabaster and preserved in the Mayer van den Bergh Museum in Antwerp (MMB.0317), sculpted around 1460-1470 (fig. A), another in alabaster is also preserved in the Cathedral of St. Maurice and St. Catherine in Magdeburg (Saxony). This devotional image was intended to allow the faithful who contemplated it to meditate on the mystery of redemption and to encourage penitence and conversion in order to see beyond suffering and to believe in salvation, in the happiness that the Resurrection brings, the victory over death.
A comparison can be made with the sculpture of Mary Magdalene carried by angels (MA4094) in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum by Tilman Riemenschneider around 1490 (fig. B) to show how two different themes can be treated in the same way.
Exhibition:
Arts of the Middle Ages, Prefecture of Marseille, 1949
L'art du Moyen Age dans les collections marseillaises, Musée Cantini, Marseille, May 20 to July 20, 1952, n°72
Bibliography : J. Liévaux-Boccador, E. Bresset, Statuaire médiévale de collection, Milan, 1972, tome 2, p 231-232
Works consulted :Marjan Debaene, Alabaster sculpture in Europ, 1300 - 1650, exhibition catalog MLeuven, 14 October 2022 - 26 February 2023, n°100, pp259-260
Hans Nieuwdorp, Mayer van den Bergh Museum, Antwerp, Brussels, 1992, p 75
Matthias Weniger, Tilman Riemenschneider, Die Werke im Bayerischen Nationalmueum, 2019, p 74-104
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